Philip Jose Farmer (9 page)

The restless, ever curious, Frenchman, having investigated possible means of conveyance on his own, returned with good news. They could continue on an elephant!

They proceeded to a nearby hut where they were introduced to a Hindu. Verne says that Fogg talked directly to the native. This means that the Hindu could speak some English or Fogg used the local dialect of these Khandesh people. Since Sir Francis might have wondered how he, supposedly a stranger to India, could have mastered this, Fogg must have refrained. Possibly the general did the interpreting and Verne did not bother to note this. In any event, there was no language difficulty.

Yes, the Hindu had an elephant. His name was Kiouni. But Kiouni was not for sale or hire. He was very valuable; he was being trained to be a war elephant.

Mr. Fogg offered ten pounds an hour for the use of the animal. No? Twenty? No? Forty?

Would Kiouni be for sale for a thousand pounds?

At this point, Sir Francis took Fogg to one side. He begged him not to ruin himself. Fogg coldly replied that he never acted rashly. He would pay twenty times what the beast was worth if need be.

Twelve hundred?

No?

Fifteen hundred?

No?

Eighteen hundred pounds?

No?

When Fogg offered two thousand pounds, Passepartout almost fainted. He could hear the money in the bag boiling away.

Two thousand?

Yes!

The Indian was afraid to ask for more because he might lose it all. The sum would enable him not only to live comfortably the rest of his life but would make him the biggest man in his community.

None of the three Europeans knew how to ride an elephant nor how to keep from getting lost if they could. A young and intelligent man of the Parsi faith then offered his services. Fogg quickly accepted this, promising a large sum in payment. An hour after they arrived, the three Europeans, with the Parsi, rode off. Sir Francis and Fogg sat on each side of the howdah; Passepartout straddled the saddlecloth between them; the mahout rode on the beast’s neck.

Their guide assured them that if they went directly through the jungle, they could lop twenty miles off the journey. Passepartout went pale, because this meant entering the territory of the rajah of Bundelcund. British law did not extend into it, and if the rajah were to discover that they were within, they would be in for it. He stroked the watch.

Fogg did not hesitate in ordering the shortcut taken.

At noon they had left the dense jungle for a country covered with copses of date trees and dwarf-palms. The pachyderm’s long legs soon left this behind, and they were on great arid plains on which were sickly-looking shrubs and huge blocks of syenite. 
This stone, Fogg informed Sir Francis, was an igneous rock largely composed of feldspar. It derived its scientific name from the ancient Egyptian city of Syene, where it was found in large quantities.

Sir Francis merely grunted in reply. He was hanging onto the side of the howdah, which moved up and down with a motion like a small boat’s in a choppy sea. Passepartout also found the motion upsetting and sickening. He had no inclination to meditate on what would happen if they encountered Bundelcundians. If he had, he might have wished that the meeting would be fatal, since he would rather die than continue this ride, and would soon do so anyway if it did not cease. Then they did see some natives, and these gestured threateningly. The Parsi, however, urged the beast to a faster speed, and the Hindus did not try to pursue them.

By eight that evening, they had crossed the principal chain of the Vindhya Mountains. They stopped at a ruined bungalow to rest in it for the night. The elephant had carried them for twenty-five miles, twice as fast as they could have gone on foot in this rough country. Allahabad now lay only another twenty-five miles away.

Verne says that the Parsi built a fire against the cold night and that they then ate the provisions they had brought from Kholby. This is confirmed by Fogg’s secret log. They resumed, as Verne says, at six o’clock next morning. But Verne’s account of the time intervening is not at all accurate. The guide, according to Verne, watched the sleeping elephant. Sir Francis slept heavily. Passepartout dreamed uneasily of the jolting journey. Fogg slept as peacefully as if he were in bed in No. 7, Savile Row.

This is not a likely picture. Anybody who has for the first 
time in a long time ridden all day on a horse would know how sore they would be and how hard sleep would come. Magnify the soreness and fatigue by a third and add to that the inevitable distress occasioned by eating the food of tropical jungle aborigines, and you have an excellent idea of their state. The truth, as revealed in the other log, is as follows.

 9 

Though their trip had been speedy, it had not been nonstop. All three Europeans had frequently required the Parsi to halt the elephant while they dashed into the bushes. Toward the end of the day even the imperturbable Fogg looked pale. Before they went to bed, master and servant stepped out into the thick jungle to perform certain bodily functions they felt almost too weak to perform. Fogg listened serenely, if sympathetically, to Passepartout’s groans, moans, and complaints until they were finished with their duties—or hoped they were.

He said, “Have you been checking your watch, as I impressed on you that you should?”

“But certainly...”

“And?”

“And nothing! No signals of any kind! Which is indeed fortunate! If there had been, then we would be certain that that pig of a rajah...”

“Speak more quietly,” Fogg said. “It would be easy for 
someone to approach unnoticed in this dense forest.”

“Pardon, sir, but it is possible that I did not hear the tiny gong which announces that another...”

“Do not use that word.”

“...another, er, watch, is activated and broadcasting. The noise made by the beast’s motion and the creaking of the howdah, not to mention our groans, made it difficult to hear.”

“It’s quiet enough now.”

“Except for the screaming and chattering of those monkeys and the yelling of those birds. And the Parsi says that we will hear leopards and tigers tonight.”

“It will be quiet enough in the bungalow,” Fogg said. “You will keep the watch beside your ear tonight.”

“But certainly! I had planned to do just that. And if the signal comes?”

“We will answer it.”

“Name of a pig!”

“In our own fashion,” Fogg said. “However, there is one way we can assure that it is sent.”

“Assure it?” Passepartout said. He had been pale before: now he looked as white as one of the demons in the legends of the Hindus.

“There is no need to repeat myself. When the others have gone to sleep, you will set it on 
transmit.”

Passepartout’s eyes swelled like a pouter pigeon’s chest.

“But why? We will be instantly whisked...”

“I am not finished. You will do this very briefly. Flick it off and on and then wait. If, in ten minutes, there is no indication that another device is on, you will repeat the 
transmit.
 For a half-
second only. You will repeat this pattern for two hours, after which I will take over.”

“What do you plan? What could we do if we did get a signal?”

“That is arranged,” Fogg said. “If you get a signal before your two hours are up, wake me at once.”

Passepartout did not like the idea of having to stay awake when he was so tired. He discovered, however, that he would not have been able to sleep in any event. His muscles felt as if they were ropes which had been used to lift heavy stones all day; his bones, it seemed to him, had been twisted as if someone had been trying to make corkscrews out of them. His nerves were like harp strings which vibrated to every sound as if they were sounded by ghostly hands. The sudden maniacal laughter of birds, the screaming of some large animal far-off—a leopard?—and a distant roar—a tiger?—made him jump as if Fogg had kicked him. Soft slitherings and rustlings in the thatch of the ceiling did not contribute to his relaxation. And the apprehension with which Fogg’s unknown plans filled him built up like dough in an oven.

He heard the Englishman’s regular breathing and wondered how he could go to sleep so soundly and so quickly. Sir Francis was quietly groaning and turning every few minutes; evidently, he was finding it difficult to drop off. What if the brigadier-general were still awake when, or if, a signal came?

After a while, unable to lie still, the Frenchman arose and stepped outside the bungalow. The moon had risen and was shedding an effulgent light on the hillside. The vast bulk of Kiouni and the small body of the mahout-guide were black under the shade of a giant tree about twenty yards away.

A loud cracking made him leap a few inches off the ground. 
His heart accelerated. Were the thuggees approaching through the bush with their garrots in hand, intending to strangle the foreigners and so sacrifice them to the goddess Kali without the spilling of blood? Was a wild elephant coming toward them with a vast malice in its vast heart? Was a herd of the dangerous wild buffalo or savage wild pig about to attack them?

Passepartout sighed, and his tired heart beat more slowly. No, it was only Kiouni tearing off a branch of the tree to feed his huge stomach. He munched while his belly rumbled as if it were a distant but mighty cataract.

Verne says that Kiouni slept all night, forgetting that the poor beast had been traveling all day and had had nothing to eat. Kiouni needed 
sleep,
 but needed food more, since an elephant requires several hundreds of pounds of forage a day to maintain his strength. Kiouni had gone to sleep, standing up, for several hours after arriving. Now hunger pangs had awakened him, and he was eating, indifferent to the noise he was making or its possible interference with the sleep of the humans.

Though the mountain air at night was cold, Passepartout perspired heavily. 
Mon dieu!
 he thought. What could they do if they were transported into the heart of the rajah’s palace? Their only weapons—pitifully tiny—were the jackknives he and Fogg carried. And would not the rajah be prepared for them? Would he not have many of his soldiers lined up around the distorter, all armed with rifles and swords? Would not he, Passepartout, and his mad master be helpless to resist capture or slaying? Far better to be killed at once. To fall into the hands of a Capellean meant days of the most terrible torture. Ah, if he did not quit perspiring he would catch a cold which would 
quickly transform itself into a fatal pneumonia.

Look! The Parsi, who had said he would stand watch over his beast, had lain down on the ground and was even now snoring so loudly that he could be heard through the elephant’s stomach stormings. Wretched creature! Had he no sense of duty? How could the Parsi sleep while he, Passepartout, suffered? Was all the world asleep except for the sinister predators of the jungle, the voracious Kiouni, and himself?

He held the watch up to his ear and listened. It emanated nothing but its steady ticking, measuring Time, the shadow of Eternity, while Passepartout and the universe grew older. But the universe, though doomed to die eventually, would be here a long long time after Passepartout had become dust and less than dust. Dust which a tree would draw up within its woody body and which some elephant would strip off and digest in its stomach and then eject and which the ground, not to mention some bugs and birds, would eat and then eject. So Passepartout, in a million dissociations, would go through eternity being taken in and driven out, though, thank God, unconscious of all the indignities and nastinesses. Unless the Hindus were correct and he, as Passepartout, a whole, would be reincarnated again and again.